THE SECRET HOURS

Gerard Doyle performs this stand-alone dispatch from Mick Herron's cynical "spook street" world with such dry resignation that it is often laugh-out-loud funny, or would be if it weren't so believable. In his Slough House novels (and their TV adaptations, the riveting "Slow Horses") Herron is doing for MI-5 what Dickens did for Chancery and the Circumlocution Office. This novel omits Slough House, but that series' icily corrupt character known as First Desk is either the same woman or cut from the same cloth, and the hapless innocents, villains, and cogs in the system are similarly, wonderfully (or frighteningly) vintage Herron. Doyle's vocal control is masterly, his pacing, range, and attention to detail a perfect match for Herron's, which is highest praise. B.G. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award, 2023 Best Audiobook © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine [Published: OCTOBER 2023]